From Dusty Rubble to Ripe Mango's; New Ways to See Haiti (Jan 11)

When the alarm went off this morning at 6 am this morning, I was craving another 4-6 hours of sleep. As a person who spent most of their winter break (before the Haiti trip) waking up at 12 in the afternoon and eating "breakfast" around 1 pm, the mornings in Haiti have been quite the adjustment. Having oatmeal with raisins and peanuts while chugging 3 cups of coffee didn't even seem to wake me up. But, as the day previous had shown me getting up early to our rubble clearing site was more valuable than any amount of sleep could be.

Getting to our rubble clearing site proved to be quick and efficient as we arrived at the church, gathered our tools, rounded up our Haitian and American rubble clearing team, said a prayer, and walked to the site. We all seemed to comment that we wished there was a more efficient way to clear the rubble but for now all we had were shovels, buckets, and an assembly line of people to move the rubble from the house down the hill to the truck. It astonished me (even after yesterday's 4 hour of rubble clearing) how truly motivated everyone on the team was. There were many barriers and challenges we all had to leap over. A few of the Haitian women were over 60 but they continued to move buckets of rubble all day long. Many of us couldn't speak Creole but we found ways to interact through body language, games, and short Creole phrases. Most importantly to me, no one gave up. We aren't all athletes and we don't all come from the same backgrounds but all 20 or so of us come together for 4 hours and don't give up. Going to the work site really does put "a face to the name" (per say) for me. The "post earthquake Haiti" that I read about in the newspaper isn't a land of the poor but a group of people who are fighting to make a living and working hard to better themselves and their country...just like you and me. Rubble isn't lining the roads and taking over the country but instead is seen in pockets, continuing to be removed day by day.

After coming back to our new home at MCC we took showers and had the opportunity to hear from Ari. Ari is a Haitian man who started the Kore Pwodiksyon Lokal (K.P.L.) which is an organization advocating to the Haitian people to eat locally produced Haitian food instead of imported food. He described that free trade and food drops (done by the United States and outside countries particularly after the earthquake) have stunted the local economy greatly because people have stopped eating locally grown Haitian food for less expensive imported food. I easily recognized how this is devastating to the local farmers whose crops are not wanted as much as less expensive imported and donated foods. After Ari spoke, I learned that not only of Haitians losing jobs, but also that "one sided communication" is being continued. Americans/outsiders are "communicating" to the Haitians that outside food is better and that Haitians are not able to produce all the food their people need to survive. Ari described that Haiti does/has the able to produce all of the food for its people and when people start to eat locally demand will create a greater supply (of Haitian grown food). With more jobs in agriculture and less reliance on outside influence, infrastructure is bound to change. I truly believe in the potential for Haiti, because (believe it or not) at one point 1/2 of all of the sugar produced in the world came from Haiti.

After dinner and a conversation about food sovereignty I couldn't help but wish that imported foods were not present in Haiti. Haitian people could be given a whole new sense of dignity that they come from a country with abundances of ripe mangos, fresh papaya, and other foods they are able to produce without any outside help.

Watch Ari's commercial about K.P.L with over 16,000 views on YouTube and local Haitian television by clicking on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSpyGCZkp-A